


i know the sound

by jehoney



Category: Archie Comics, Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: ANOTHER jug pov, Child Injury, Deaf Character, Gen, Hard of Hearing Jughead, Head Injury, Parental Conflict, Tinnitus, Verbal Abuse, archie ur songs are cringey, but hey, except he's not completely that's just the only general tag, fp is a bad father, idk what to tag this just bear with me, jug naps in class, kinda ooc for riverdale juggie comic jug works better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 15:56:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10441407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehoney/pseuds/jehoney
Summary: Jughead Jones is five years old when he falls down the stairs. He’s doing something stupid, probably, (or that’s what his dad told him, he can’t remember it all that well), like playing Superman with a bedsheet cape and socks on hardwood floors. The old house is nice, nicer than the trailer, with polished floorboards that work perfectly to take a five-year-old tumbling down a flight of wooden stairs.Jughead is five years old when the impact of his head cracking against the banister post causes trauma to his auditory nerve.in which jughead is hard of hearing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so in @kadeles' fic 'i love you, but not like that' jug is HOH and apparently that was a proposed storyline for the show and i just think it's rlly cool and i had to write this 
> 
> again i love writing things that i have no personal experience of but i try to be as accurate as possible :)))))
> 
> enjoy ! x

Jughead Jones is a king, surveying his plentiful and glorious domain.

He is a kind king: the workers he watches reaping the golden corn do not work too hard, and are allowed enough to feed themselves twice over. The sun always shines in his kingdom, though not enough to cause those gross sweat patches on his lovely doublet, and the day is sweet, the harvest good.

He watches from the turret of his fortress, as the dusk draws in and the people below end their long, rewarding work, and he adjusts the golden crown on his head, so it’s slightly tilted, the way he likes it. He should turn in, the wind can’t usually reach him up here, but as the evening brings the chill it seems to tug at his cloak, increasingly strong until he’s being buffeted by it, gusts pulling at his clothing.

And with a few, face-scrunching blinks, he’s back in Flute-Snoot’s history classroom, and Archie is threatening to tear his sweater by how hard he’s tugging on it. From the looks of it, he’s trying to be subtle, arm reaching across the gap between their desks, eyes still fixed on the board, and as Jug lifts his head from his (slightly damp) sleeve, he can see good old Flute-Snoot, lips moving in what Jug can only assume is a reprimand. He can hear that there’s sound leaving his lips, but the rest is left entirely up to his colourful imagination, so he decides to have some fun with him. He’s getting an A in this anyway.

“SORRY, sir?! I’m afraid I CAN’T HEAR YOU – my HEARING AIDS are PLAYING UP.”

It’s worth it just to see the way Archie stifles a laugh beside him, shooting him an incredulous look, and Flute-Snoot simply fixes him with a death glare and begins to wipe off the whiteboard behind him. That, the sudden movement of the class, and the faint, underwater-like ringing of the bell inform him of the end of lesson, and he smirks as he packs away his things.

Reaching underneath his hat, he switches the aids hooked over his ears back on, flinching slightly at the volume increase of twenty high school students making their way out of the classroom. Archie turns to him as they reach the doorway.

“What’s the point of even having those things, dude?” he laughs, and Jug shrugs.

“The _idea_ was to nap in class without being disturbed; a plan which you resolutely foiled, Andrews.” And he punches him playfully in the shoulder.

 

* * *

 

Jughead Jones is five years old when he falls down the stairs. He’s doing something stupid, probably, (or that’s what his dad told him, he can’t remember it all that well), like playing Superman with a bedsheet cape and socks on hardwood floors. The old house is nice, nicer than the trailer, with polished floorboards that work perfectly to take a five-year-old tumbling down a flight of wooden stairs.

Jughead is five years old when the impact of his head cracking against the banister post causes trauma to his auditory nerve. At first, they think the burst eardrum is the reason why he can’t hear what the doctors are trying to say, but after the surgery to repair it, they know better.

Jughead is five when he goes back to school with foreign, alien appendages sticking out from the side of his head, everything sounding tinnier and harsher than before. He’s five when Archie tells him he’s got cyborg ears, and that he’s a real-life Transformer, which is _the coolest,_ and that while he was away he cried because he didn’t have anyone as good to play with (he tells him this in secret).

In many ways, it’s a blessing.

Before Mom and Jellybean move out, he can lie on his bed, and pretend the muffled noise of shouting from downstairs is the humming hearbeat of a spaceship engine. When Jellybean sneaks into his room at night, when the fights roll on into the early hours, until Dad passes out, Jug can press his hands over her ears instead, because he’s been given nature’s own solution to ignoring parental disputes.

This is also, incidentally, nature’s solution to ignore teachers.

He’s not lying when he says his hearing aids play up – they do – they’re the cheapest on the market and run on stupid, fiddly batteries, but it’s too easy to use this as an excuse for anything. Missed assignment? Didn’t hear it being set. Skipped detention? Wasn’t even aware of it being given! Fell asleep in class?

Well, there’s no real excuse for that, it’s just easier to do when you don’t have to hear the nasal tones of Mr Flute-Snoot.

There’s an incident, in freshman year, where he gets cocky with his privileges and the school actually offer to buy him new hearing aids, more reliable, less susceptible to “unfortunately timed malfunctions”, as they put it. He’s weirdly flattered, but knows his dad would go ballistic at the philanthropic and pitying stance of the school, so refuses politely, and makes a decision not to take so many liberties.

In many ways, however, it is distinctly not a blessing.

Not so much a curse, but an uncomfortable, frustrating (and occasionally painful) annoyance. After eleven years of it, he’s settled in pretty well, but the jarring amplification for his five-year-old brain gives him headaches for months, and he tries to lose them too many times to count, hiding them down the couch cushions, in the glovebox of the car, behind the fridge. He never brings himself to throw them away, because he knows they don’t have the money to get new ones, (at least until he grows out of them), but the artificial audio _hurts_ , and is surprisingly far from real life ‘hearing’, so much so that he goes through a period where he resolutely refuses to wear them. But he doesn’t know sign language and he can’t read lips, and the whole of 6th grade moves around him like he’s some kind of ghost, on the outside of real life, and watching Betty and Archie laughing makes him so desperate that he tries again.

His dad likes to poke fun, like he thinks that after eleven years of doing the same, tired, routine, Jug is going to find it one day suddenly hilarious instead of humiliating. He talks exaggeratedly slowly, like on obnoxious tourist speaking to a national of some foreign country; sometimes he’ll ask for a beer, and when Jug throws him one will say, “I asked for whiskey, are you deaf, kid?”, laughing hoarsely at his own comedic genius as Jug clenches his fists and resists the urge to sock him around the jaw. If he’s having a really good day, he likes to remind Jug of how it’s essentially his own stupid fault for falling down the stairs, and on these days Jughead takes the aids out completely, leaves them on the table, and walks all the way to the Andrews’.

And the tinnitus, the thin, high ringing, like the fucked-up nerve in his head is twanging like one of Archie’s out of tune guitar strings, constant and agonising. It keeps him up for whole nights, sometimes, and putting the aids back in somehow makes it worse, so he distracts himself with the feeling of fingers tapping on keys – equal parts sound and tactility to take his brain elsewhere.

The devices are still big, still conspicuous and still ugly. On his laptop, he has a page bookmarked: a pair of inner ear aids, no outer shell making him look like he’s sporting a Bluetooth headset, but discreet, tucked away in his ear canal.

They cost $230.

So he sticks to the ones that have served him relatively well for three years now, and pushes them under the brim of his beanie, under his mess of hair.

 

* * *

 

The daydream, the medieval king one, was surprisingly pleasant. He can’t always guarantee that with dreams, especially when they’re borne out of Flute-Snoot’s terminally tedious and sometimes disturbingly violent history lessons, but he’s had the kingdom one a few times now, and other than the nagging indication of his subconscious God-complex, it always leaves him in a good mood.

Waking up from the less pleasant ones in the middle of a classroom of his peers is not unheard of, but is also far from preferable.

“You were out cold today, Juggie,” Archie remarks, leaning against the lockers as Jug shoves away his books. He always has this look in his eyes, like he can’t quite believe how the dark-haired boy gets away with it, but, if Jug’s being honest, he can’t believe that the redhead can attract so many girls to him, given his status as the clumsiest, most moronic, lovesick puppy in existence. So really, the disbelief is mutual.

“Yeah,” he scratches the back of his neck, “Old Tinny kept me up last night.” And with a tap to his temple, Archie nods in acknowledgement and doesn’t push the subject. The naps are, more often than not, an opportunity to catch up on missed sleep whilst also resolutely Sticking It To The Man.

They walk in silence to the student lounge, or rather, soft background noise for Archie and grating undertones for Jug, and as they settle down in armchairs the redhead leans forward in his chair, like he’s got an announcement to make.

“I was wondering…” he starts, and Veronica leans forward in exaggerated intrigue, Kevin feigning interest, and Betty listening as she picks fluff from Jug’s sleeve, “If any of you wanted to help me work on my new song.”

And it’s almost impossible not to laugh at how Kevin’s brows lift to meet his hairline, and Betty’s mouth opens in that way when she definitely wants to reject someone, but hasn’t figured out how to go about it, just yet. It’s not that Archie’s songs are _bad_ – they’re not, they’re really rather good from what mangled version Jughead hears through his aids, but spending time in that now-tainted music room, sifting through Archie’s innermost and emotionally embarrassing lyrics is no-one’s idea of a good time. Except, perhaps Val.

Veronica decides to take one for the team, after Jug, by way of an answer, gestures vaguely in the area of his ear.

As she shoots a desperate look over her parting shoulder, Jughead thinks that maybe this whole thing is a blessing after all.

**Author's Note:**

> don't @ me for the ridiculousness of flute snoot's name he legit exists 
> 
> also archie i love u babe but


End file.
